“Oh, it ken be done, mister, fur the Tristaners go over thaar, as the b’y told you, every year fur a week or so; an’ they hev to git ashore somehow or other. Yes, we’ll manage to land you, safe enough, in a whale-boat when the time comes. What I meant to say was, thet the ship couldn’t stay any while lyin’ off, so as to see whether you liked the place or not. If you land, thaar you’ll hev to stay till we come back fur you next v’y’ge!”
“All right, I shan’t mind that, with Eric. If I were alone, of course it would be another matter.”
“Jest so,” replied the Yankee skipper; and he then proceeded to advise the brothers what would be best to take with them, Fritz wishing to lay out his small remaining stock of money to advantage.
He also told them, good-naturedly, that he would convey them to their contemplated destination for nothing, so that they would have no passage to pay. Eric, indeed, would work his, being considered as attached to the ship, his name besides being retained on the list of the crew while sealing on shore; and, as for Fritz, Captain Brown said, he would “grub him and give him a bunk into the barg’in.”
Then, again, in respect of the provisions they would need for their maintenance during their stay on the island, the skipper promised to supply them from the ship’s stores, on their arrival there, at cost price; so that, not only would they thus get them much cheaper than they would have been able to purchase them in open market, but they would likewise save the cost of their freightage to Inaccessible Island, which any one else would have expected them to pay.
Could Fritz desire more?
Hardly.
“I guess, mister,” concluded the skipper, “so be it as how you kinder makes up yer mind fur the venture, thet you two coons will start in bizness with a clean sheet an’ no book debts, like the boss of a dry goods store; an’ if you don’t make a pile in less than no time, why it won’t be Job Brown’s fault, I reckon!”
This settled the matter; when, the captain giving them a short memorandum of certain necessary articles which they would find useful on the island and which they could readily procure in Providence while the Pilot’s Bride was refitting, the two brothers set to work making their preparations without delay for the novel enterprise to which Eric’s project had given birth—that of going crusoeing in the South Atlantic!